the white savior of the black oppressed. ('j esus is a trick on niggers," the protag- onist of Flannery O'Connor's 1949 novel 'Wise Blood" says.) After Elizabeth gets Charlotte sold off the plantation-the cunning mis- tress never loses her passion for Benja- min; in fact, she gives birth to his child-she goes to visit Benjamin in his cabin with David and her brother John (Hugh Sinclair), who is a preacher. Bradshaw writes: At rise Benjamin is lying despondently in bed. . . . John brings in a turkey leg and corn- bread on a plate. John is eating cornbread. DAVID: We've let you lie here for two days because of your grief, but now it's time to move on, Benjamin. ELIZABETH: We know how much you loved Charlotte, but we think that you should take a new wife to console yourself. Are there any of our slave girls that you would like to marry? . . . BENJAMIN: I don't want a new wife. I love Charlotte. ] OHN: God works in mysterious ways, Benjamin. You must toss off your grief and take a new wife. ELIZABETH: We've brought you a turkey leg and some cornbread to make you feel better. BENJAMIN: You brung me a turkey leg? We're in "Saturday Night Live" terri- tory here-particularly the skit in which Robert De Niro plays Thomas Jefferson asking Sally Hemings (Maya Rudolph) for a date. Coming on to her, he asks what time she gets off work, and she says, looking a little in- credulous, "Urn. . . . Never." Unfortunately, Jose Zayas, who di- d " s h P . " recte out ern romlses, messes up this absurdist work by trying to shoe- horn it into a realistic mode. It's as though he felt he had to justify or ex- plain away Bradshaw's outrageousness. As a result of his straitlaced approach, the actors-who all seem game-aren't liberated; they're stuck somewhere be- tween realism and parody, trying to present genuine feelings in a Charles Ludlam-like setting. Bradshaw's lan- guage is not psychological: it's purpose- fully, and essentially, ridiculous. His plays-a selection of which, happily for us, has been published by Samuel French-deserve a director like the late Douglas Sirk, who said, in reference to "Imitation of Life," his stylized 1959 film about race, "You can't escape what you are. . . . Both white and black are leading imitated lives. . . . Everything, even in life, is inevitably removed from "-.... , t'--' ,.' ..i." " \ ..... <(IN" '" ... ,'. \ ),"\ \' \t(\" :t.\ . \t\\: ., \ "-...-..., )1) , , .-- " - ; ::/ . J :::; .. :...:\ -:I,"'\. .:1'--.. { " ' \ " \." " ' " , . ._;.........0;...........-: -\ -.' I. l ...'.\- '\ '.\ " " , " , " . 'I J...' \ ' Thomas and Johnson in "Southern Promises." Photograph by Elinor Carucci. you. You can't reach or touch the real. You just see reflections." At P.S. 122, our attention drifts. The play should move quickly, barely giving us time to absorb one aspect of its comedic horror before we're called upon to watch another. Instead, the action drags as Zayas gives the actors subtext. If Bradshaw found the right collaborator, his actors might achieve the degree of freedom that Robert Downey,Jr., attains-playing an Aus- tralian actor who thinks it would be cool to be black-in the movie "Tropic Thunder," surely one of the best por- trayals of male and racial hysteria ever. Then Bradshaw would be able to say, of the source of his rich and ground- breaking work, what Downey said when a TV interviewer asked him what had inspired his performance. Downey paused for a moment, then replied, his eyes twinkling with mis- chief, "My sorry-ass self:" . , THAT S TOO BAD DEPARTMENT From the Times. Those who are not imprisoned are often arrested for possession of small quantities of drugs and later released-in some cases with a permanent stain on their records that can make it difficult to get a job or start a young person on a path to future arrests.